ANALYZE THE DETERMINANTS OF DEMAND FOR THE LEGAL PROFESSIONALS
INTRODUCTION
The legal profession is one of the major fields amongst all professions. Especially in a country like India, most children grow up in a household where the family poses a choice of choosing between being a doctor or a lawyer. This and the many other children with a liking towards law have been opting for law and their numbers have since been increasing. This is evident through the number of aspirants attempting one of the major law entrance exams in India known as the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT). While in 2019 about 60,000 candidates appeared for the test, in 2020 the number increased to about 75,000.
On the other hand, India has a huge population. The number of cases that remain waiting for the hearing is numerous. There are many articles on how the Indian courts are slow with the proceedings. One of the major reasons for this is the lesser number of professionals in the field. Even though many finishes law school, not everyone picks it up as an established profession. This has led to inadequate law professionals. This is mainly about the very positions which remain vacant. Thus there is a growing demand for law professionals to extend services to the growing population of India.
This growth is best understood in the numerical sense. Economics as a branch will provide the perfect understanding of the demand for legal professionals. The determinants of demand deal with products sometimes and sometimes also with services. Law is a field that gets involved with other services too, whatever they can be. If you are a doctor, you still have laws to be followed set by the governing authority. Law is part of services and will be connected to economics subject to find the various factors responsible for the demand for legal professionals.
OBJECTIVES
The objectives of the research are as follows:
1. To understand the determinants of demand in the general sense.
2. To analyze the growth of the legal profession in India in recent years.
3. To create a connection between the demand for lawyers in India and the global platform.
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Many researchers, mainly economists have studied the subject in various senses. Some have opted for the exact subject to study it from various other countries and in different timelines. The Market for Lawyers: The Determinants of the Demand for the Supply of Lawyers[1] showed a detailed study on the determinants of the demand in the legal field in the United States. This is performed through various numerical values collected on the appointment of judges, the number of students attempting LSAT exams in the United States, etc.
While the above literature focused on the lawyers in the United States of America, a journal by Samuel Schmittener, A Sketch of the Development of the Legal profession in India[2] , studies the history of the legal profession in India starting from the time of Independence. During those times, many important positions in the Indian legal system were occupied by officials from Britain as there were not enough professionals in the field of law from India. From such a condition, the legal profession grew to become one of the most influential and respected professions in Indian society.
India introduced liberalization in the 1990s which played a major role in the acceleration of the legal profession. This was when the number of lawyers needed especially in the corporate law sector increased. This is well explained in an article called The Future of Indian Legal Profession[3] by the Honourable Judge of Supreme Court, D.Y. Chandrachud himself. Even though this is not economics-related literature, it still gave a background idea about the journey of the legal profession in India.
After knowing about the legal profession in the United States and India, the journal article A New Analysis of the Market for Legal Services.: The Lawyer, homo economicus or homo conventional?[4] brings in the research-based in the European countries. The paper simply talks about the need to liberalize the market for legal professionals and at last trying to make it a free market for legal professionals. This is done to get more and good professionals in the sector.
The journal article, Determinants of the Demand for Money[5] studies on the factors deciding the demand for money. This work helps in a major way to help the researcher find a basic structure of study while studying determinants of demand.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The researcher has chosen a descriptive method of research to analyze the determinants of demand for legal professionals. In addition to conducting basic research, the researcher also wishes to approach professionals in the law sector to understand their understanding of the subject from the inner circle. Their approach is expected to be more detailed than the one the outsiders to the legal field will have. This might also extend to other law aspirants who are at the very start of the journey towards being a law professional. The researcher may also display certain data if needed, as a graph representation to give a quick and easy understanding of the whole picture at a glance.
DESCRIPTION:-
CHAPTER 1
DEMAND:
Demand in economics is the want towards a good or service. A demand mandates three essentials: the desire to buy something, willingness to pay for it, and at last, the actual ability to pay for it. For example, a person X wants a loaf of bread. They are willing to pay for the bread and also have the money to buy it. This is called demand. Here, there is a demand for the loaf of bread. On another circumstance, a person Y loves a luxury car and there is a particular car they love. Even though they are rich enough to pay for it, they are not willing to pay for it because they do not think it is essential and do not want to spend money on it. Here, there is no demand for the said car.
Several factors decide the demand for a good or service. These are called the determinants of demand. The following are the main determinants of demand:
i. The price of the product/ Service
ii. Consumer income
iii. The price of related goods—substitutes and complements
iv. The number of consumers/ Population of the Country
v. Consumer preferences—tastes and Habits
vi. Consumer expectations about future prices and Income
vii. The advertisement of the product
viii. Seasonal Conditions
ix. Consumer Credit Facility
x. Demonstration effect/ Bandwagon Effect
xi. Distribution of National Income/ Growth of Economy
The demand function is an important concept which establishes a connection between demand and the determinants of demand. The formula of determinants of demand is as follows:
Dx = f (Px, Ps…Pc, Y, T, P, E, A, …)
Where, Pn = Price of the good itself Pn…Pn-1 = Prices of other goods Y = Consumer incomes – including both the level and distribution of income T = Tastes and preferences of consumers P = The level and age structure of the population E = Price expectations of consumers for future periods
Dx = demand function
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[1] Pashigian, B. (1977). The Market for Lawyers: The Determinants of the Demand for the Supply of Lawyers. The Journal of Law and Economics, 53-85. [2] Schmitthener, S. (1968). A Sketch of the Development of the Legal Profession in India. Law & Society Review, 337-382. [3] Y. Chandrachud, D. (2018). The Future of Indian Legal Profession. The Indian Legal Profession. [4] Bessis , F., & Chaserant, C. (2019). A New Analysis of the Market for Legal Services.: The Lawyer, homo œconomicus or homo conventionalis? Historical Social Research, 188-211. [5] P. Pesek, B. (1963). Determinants of the Demand for Money. The Review of Economics and Statistics, 419-424.
AUTHOR DETAILS:
NAME: GAYATHRI VISWAN K
COURSE: BBA-LLB
YEAR: 1st
UNIVERSITY: SYMBIOSIS LAW SCHOOL, HYDERABAD
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